Julianna
In the last few months we have talked a lot about the social nature of the Internet – social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, creating your own social network, how social bookmarking can help you keep track of the web, and social news sites like Digg – but we haven’t yet touched on a new revolution of the social Internet. Think about the one thing you do most on the Internet – search! While Google is still the leading search provider, there is a new wave of search engines that are harnessing the power of the social Internet. Even Google is acknowledging social search, adding a new Facebook application where you can share your search results with your friends.
So what exactly is social search and where do you start? Wikipedia explains it well:
A social search engine is a type of search engine that determines the relevance of search results by considering the interactions or contributions of users. Example forms of user input include social bookmarking or direct interaction with the search results such as promoting or demoting results the user feels are more or less relevant to their query. When applied to Web search this user-based approach to relevance is in contrast to established algorithmic or machine-based approaches where relevance is determined by analyzing the text of each document or the link structure of the documents (ex: the basis of PageRank).
For individual searchers, it’s as if someone else is recommending sites for you. For businesses, this can mean less of a focus on SEO and more of a focus on customers and people. Critics of social search argue that it isn’t objective, and that the results aren’t as relevant, but we all know there are many other factors besides spiders and algorithms that determine search engine ranking.
So you are ready to try out social search, the next question is – where to start? Like most Web 2.0 era ideas, the market is crowded. One of the more well known sites is Mahalo, started by Jason Calacanis founder and former CEO of blogging network Weblogs Inc. But it’s still a fairly new field and there are bound to be more than a few contenders. Luckily Mashable has cataloged them all for you so you can try a few out and find the one you like best. Social search is still fairly new, but it will be interesting to see how it will influence search, and ultimately interaction on the Internet.
For more information, check out this article: